Hunger

[huhng-ger] /ˈhʌŋ gər/

noun
1.
a compelling need or desire for food.
2.
the painful sensation or state of weakness caused by the need of food:
to collapse from hunger.
3.
a shortage of food; famine.
4.
a strong or compelling desire or craving:
hunger for power.
verb (used without object)
5.
to feel hunger; be .
6.
to have a strong desire.
verb (used with object)
7.
Rare. to subject to hunger; starve.
Idioms
8.
from hunger, Slang. deplorably bad; dreadful:
The styles in coats this winter are from hunger.
Also, strictly from hunger.
/ˈhʌŋɡə/
noun
1.
a feeling of pain, emptiness, or weakness induced by lack of food
2.
an appetite, desire, need, or craving: hunger for a woman
verb
3.
to have or cause to have a need or craving for food
4.
(intransitive; usually foll by for or after) to have a great appetite or desire (for)
n.

Old English hungor “unease or pain caused by lack of food, craving appetite, debility from lack of food,” from Proto-Germanic *hungruz (cf. Old Frisian hunger, Old Saxon hungar, Old High German hungar, Old Norse hungr, German hunger, Dutch honger, Gothic huhrus), probably from PIE root *kenk- (2) “to suffer hunger or thirst.” Hunger strike attested from 1885; earliest references are to prisoners in Russia.
v.

Old English hyngran (cf. Old Saxon gihungrjan, Old High German hungaran, German hungern, Gothic huggrjan), from the source of hunger (n.). Related: Hungered; hungering.

hunger hun·ger (hŭng’gər)
n.

Related Terms

from hunger